


The Fenella Files

by abbichicken



Category: Murder Most Unladylike Series - Robin Stevens
Genre: Boarding School, Detective Society Forever, Detectives, F/F, Future Fic, Historical References, Misses Clause Challenge, Murder Most Unladylike - Freeform, Murder Mystery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-08 08:21:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8837434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abbichicken/pseuds/abbichicken
Summary: Even in their old age, Hazel and Daisy just can't seem to escape being in the right place at the right time to solve a murder mystery. And neither of them would have it any  other way. Detective Society quite literally Forever!_____Spoilers? I hope not - I've read all current available canon as of December 2016, including Mistletoe and Murder, but references to previous cases should be oblique and non-spoilery. The only exception to this is - if I've done my job well - some of the nuance of the Hazel/Daisy relationship. As this is future!fic, the majority of what I've written is imagined, but it would be hard not to be a little influenced by how things have played out in the books thus far.





	1. The Fall

**Author's Note:**

  * For [soupytwist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/soupytwist/gifts).



> With huge thanks for such an inspirational prompt! I, er, yeah. This is quite long. Scarily, it was a lot longer at one stage. This really caught my imagination and it ran so hard into an area of my life that, yep, super-enthuses me, that I did very little to stop it! I adore Hazel and Daisy, and if I could write all day about their ship sailing merrily into the future I would, but then it turned out that my case was pretty wordy too! I hope in all these words, you find something to enjoy, and please know that - apart from the usual writing crises, which, to look back on, always feel like great creative fun, but I have a feeling were rather exhausting to be around! - I had a great time writing this. Merry Yuletide to you, my dear!
> 
> ______
> 
> Disclaimers: Daisy, Hazel and their associated characters, as well as Fallingford and Deepdean are all the creation of their magnificent author, Robin Stevens. It has been a daunting pleasure to steal them to write this. Whistleden is my own invention, and its inhabitants, history and characters are from my own mind - with the exception of, by name at least, Diana Villiers, who, also in my mind, is the same one from Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin novels.

Whistleden Hall

  


Being an account of 

The Case of the Fenella Files  
an investigation by the Wells and Wong Detective Society

Written by Hazel Wong  
(Detective Society Vice-President and Secretary), aged 75

Begun Wednesday 3rd January 1997.

1

Daisy was in the Library when the body hurtled past the window in a stripe of fluorescence. The so-called 'hi-viz' jacket it was wearing meant that all fifteen of the visitors currently on site saw the whole thing.

I was in the Main Hall, the only volunteer on the ground floor of our beloved Whistleden Hall, as we were so short on numbers that even the popular Day Parlour was closed. Consequently, I was first on the scene. I couldn't help but be anything else. Once a Detective Society Vice-President (and Secretary), always a Detective Society Vice-President (and Secretary). I checked my watch before taking any further action. 11:05 a.m. I closed and locked the front door, as per procedure (it is too narrow for a safe evacuation process: we use the ‘trade entrance’ doors at the side of the building for that) then made my way straight out of the back doors. 

My walkie-talkie blipped loudly, but I couldn't hear the words coming out of it properly. It's such a faff to remove it from the belt, I usually don't bother picking up at all and instead wait for a member of the staff to come and relay the message properly, in person, a slight and stubborn resistance to the poor state of technology we're expected to work with, but I knew in this instance that hearing the words coming through would be vital to the case. I wrestled the unit from the thick webbing belt fastened around my waist, turned the volume up as far as I could without distorting the sound any further, and pressed it to my ear. 

The glaring crackle of heightening winds whipped through the speaker's mouthpiece, and the voice was sorely muffled. 

"Has she...gone?" it asked, the tone and nature of it indistinguishable through the technology. Then there was silence. 

Double doors open out onto the back steps of Whistleden Hall, which lead you down into the Rose Garden. There, in the centre of the gravel path, right amidst the fine topiary and heritage plants that signify a well-kept Georgian manor house of some distinction, lay the body of our Property Manager, Fenella Cooper. I have seen enough bodies in my time that I no longer need to press my fingertips to their pulse points, nor to hold the back of my hand to their parted lips to recognise them for what they are. 

I looked about for the rush of staff to the scene, but saw nobody. At the end of the path, a young family continued to play coits just a little too loudly, the mother shooting repeated glances towards me as if to infer that they were working hard to distract their little cherubs from the crisis about to unfold behind them. 

“Could you make your way around to the front of the Hall please!” I called out to them, gesturing to my name badge. I was deliberately avoiding any commitment to reason or giving them any opportunity to discuss the instruction, firmly intoning it as an order. I had to repeat myself twice, but in the end, they moved away and disappeared around the garden path to the side of the Hall, and the aforementioned evacuation point. 

Still nothing from the rest of the building. The walkie-talkie said nothing.

I looked up at the back of the house. On the rooftop, quick blurs of other hi-viz jackets, the rest of the rooftop harness training session for the day, no doubt, leaning over the edge from which Fenella had descended. I squinted, but could not make out the faces under the bright yellow helmets. At this distance, with my eyesight (one of the only faculties I begin to notice failing, I am both pleased and disappointed to say), I could not make out anything of further use. 

I looked down to the second floor windows which run along the top of the house. Always see everything; that's one of my rules. Left to right: nothing, nothing, nothing. Then Jill Svensson, Whistleden’s longest-serving Steward, clearly visible in the Housekeeper's Quarters, hands clasped over her mouth, staring down at the body. Jill has unmistakably bright green hair, and even at this distance, I had no qualms about identifying her. 

Down another floor - a visitor, the elderly gentleman with an enthusiasm for tapestry who visits Whistleden every Friday, was in the Ladies' Drawing Room, polishing his glasses with a cloth, and doing his very best not to press his face up to the window in the meantime. Nobody at the landing windows. 

To the right, the Library, and, of course, Daisy, gesturing so frantically I was astonished I had not noticed her first. I tried to give her a look to suggest that she might slow down and give her instructions a little more clearly, and thought better of trying to respond with any myself. In the next room along, a small crowd of faces, more adding by the moment: this is the Volunteer Office, and the Friday afternoon crowd were amassing.

Down one last time to the ground floor. The curtains are always drawn in the Reception rooms on the left-hand side of the Hall to protect the valuable furniture in them, so it may well have been that anyone working there would be unaware of what was happening. On the right hand side of the Hall: Iris, the newest Assistant House Steward was at the Main Office window, telephone in hand. She would, I was certain, already be on the line to the emergency services. Iris is one of the brightest young things I've met in a long time. "Ambulance please," I heard her say, in my mind's ear. But of course, I knew that she should really also be asking for the Police. 

You see, Fenella has not been a popular character at Whistleden Hall. She is a new Property Manager, and has said and done some terrible things both to the Hall itself, and to a number of staff and volunteers over the last six months. I see no reason to beat about the bush in these notes, and, from Daisy's motions, growing ever more frustrated as I saw they were, looking back up at her, I knew that she felt the same: whilst this might look to the untrained eye as if it were a terrible accident, she and I have seen more than enough such incidents to know that this could only be one thing. 

Murder.

2

The Detective Society has been in respite for quite some time. Our last case - our last proper case, I should say: Daisy was particularly interested in The Case of the Missing Glasses Case and I insisted on a small society re-opening for the prolonged and thorough Case of the Missing Jaffa Cakes (the culprit was eventually discovered to be a squirrel, whom we have since named Ulysses, and now we make him a regular cake-based offering to avoid any future perplexing thefts) - was the rather unpleasant Case of the Missing Grandchild. It always seems worse when they are children, and one can rightly understand the height and depth of feelings involved. 

Of course, it is strange to think that Daisy and I have been investigating since we were very definitely children ourselves, and such small ones at that. Well, I was. I am not sure that Daisy has ever been small, although there are portraits to the contrary in our home. We travelled to Greece for that case, ostensibly elderly ladies on a package holiday, and were delighted to be able to orchestrate a rescue of the little human in question, and absolve the mis-identified family member who called us in (an old friend who shall remain nameless to protect their innocence) from accusations of wrongdoing. 

It was a case best-suited to our skills, and Daisy and I said at the time that we should do this sort of thing more often, and we both agreed, although with one thing and another, we have had a fairly quiet couple of years, all in all. Daisy occasionally complains about this, but at the same time seems to enjoy having space to catch up on the many, many books she is constantly worried about not having time to read 'before the end'. Daisy can be very bleak sometimes, but it is true: we are rather old by most people's standards.

Age becomes us, though. We have no expectations placed upon us any more. We have both lived full and interesting lives, and, well. Life, these days, is what we make it. In that sense, we are very fortunate. In the sense that many of those we thought we would grow old with are no longer with us - and have not been with us for almost fifty years, thanks to the war - we are exceptionally fortunate. We have good friends, and Whistleden gives us a fine chance to be part of something, and to keep in touch with the world, or at least, a corner of it.

Everyone tells Daisy everything in every aspect of her life, but particularly at Whistleden, which was one of the reasons we immediately knew full well that what had happened to Fenella could not be anything but murder. Indeed, we had heard the many ways in which staff and volunteers alike had wished her to cease to be. Of course, nobody meant what they said. They always excused their vicious words with an excusing caveat or two. But then again, everybody always does. Even and especially the murderers.

We have never spoken of the Detective Society to anyone at Whistleden. Perhaps I should use this opportune moment - that wonderful space before the case makes itself apparent, and there is little time for anything but infinite questions, investigations and answers - to update my account of matters prudent to the case at hand with a little more information about Daisy and myself, for our context has always turned out to be vital to the solving of the case, and if these records are ever to prove useful in future, well. The more I can get down, the better. People are constantly telling me that I must watch out for signs of age, and forgetfulness is, of course, one such sign. It is a long time since I wrote a casebook, and much has changed. And then again, much, too, has stayed the same, or, at least, reverted to the way things once were.

My early twenties were spent in strange confinement in the War Office. Even now, I find it inappropriate, and in some cases, illegal, to relay too details of that time, but suffice to say it felt good to be able to lend the keen eye for thoughts and details that I had honed through Detective Society works to a cause on such a grand scale. I did not see Daisy during those years, save for one summer in 1943, in the mountains of Snowdonia, when she, of all people, turned up dressed as a Land Girl with the most bombshell-ish red lipstick and blonde curls, and I could hardly look at her. As soon as she saw me she gave me the 'Don't say anything!' look, and so we never acknowledged each other at that time, and it wasn't until we reconvened in the wreckage of South London in 1949 that she threw her arms around me and shouted "Hazel Wong, as I live and breathe!" as if she'd thought that, well, she might not have lived and breathed to see me again. 

That was the real beginning of Daisy and I as a unit; we bought a house together just down from the South Bank, with cracks in the walls and rats underneath, and I started work for The Times on The Strand. Daisy...well, she told me she worked in Whitehall in "correspondence", but I thought then that she was a spy, and still assume it to have been the case. Just as I don't like to talk about my governmental work, so I don't expect Daisy to let me in on all the details of her time, but she was forever travelling and wining and dining, with a huge catalogue of calling cards and she owns to this day more than one suitcase that I knew full well to contain an alternate identity.

Daisy does not try to hide things from me, but at the same time, I do not ask her complicated questions. Or, really, any questions. There was the time in 1967 where she went away for almost a year, and came back with a tan line on her ring finger, but even then, I did not bite. There have been times where I could see she found this frustrating, and wanted to seem every bit as chic and mysterious as I know her to be, and my burgeoning curiosity was as much a part of validating that identity as the possession of a series of ever-wider-brimmed hats, but I have learnt never to play up to Daisy's worst traits. Indeed, if I am honest, it rather thrills me that, despite this, she still, at times, continues to exhibit these more demanding traits. There are so many places I saw perfection when I was younger where now I see only Daisy. And that's another thing to be said for age: it is a wonderful leveller. 

At the moment, we live in what is politely referred to as a 'complex', but it's essentially a state home for retired people who have provided 'service to the Crown'. Daisy is upset that she hasn't been offered one of the apartments at Hampton Court Palace also reserved for the likes of, apparently, her (such expectations provide me with still more proof that she must have done something quite special in her time, or at least, something she thinks particularly special), but I think I prefer our newer, neater quarters which are warm in the winter and cool in the summer, and have storage that doesn't leave things mouldy and mouse-nibbled as, I have learnt, older homes tend to do. Besides, our complex isn't so far from Whistleden, which has, since my retirement and Daisy's...whatever it is...become quite the focus of our later lives. 

Whistleden has a long history as a family home, built, as it was, by a Georgian courtier in the 1750’s who, so the story goes, needed somewhere to hang his tapestries and have parties out-of-town. Whilst one might assume from the ‘large old house’ concept that it in some way reminds Daisy of Fallingford, her childhood home, it is really quite different. I think the strongest part of Daisy's attachment to Whistleden Hall is that it belonged for the longest time to a lady named Diana Villiers, who acted as an international go-between (yes, indeed, the similarity is significant, I’m sure) on behalf of Queen Victoria. Daisy developed quite the crush on her at first introduction to her existence, and keeps folders and folders of notes and observations she's made about her over the years. I keep telling her she ought to pitch it as a book, for I'm sure at least the Whistleden gift shop would be more than happy to sell it, but Daisy says that she does not need the money, and that the writing is best left to me. Whether she hopes I'll pick up her indecipherable bullet points and put them together into something readable myself, I cannot say, but Diana has much the same effect on me as Daisy herself does - both entrancing and maddening - and one Daisy in life is quite sufficient. But back to Whistleden. 

It passed through various family hands, and was also a part of the war effort, providing sanctuary and solitude for recuperating soldiers of the Great War, and then from 1942 functioned as a home and office space for a significant portion of the exiled Home Office workers. I was there briefly in 1944, and I still look upon the back bit of the staff room, the space that's filled with bookshelves now, which once had a foldout camp bed in it and my suitcase; my temporary home. 

Some of the younger staff often seem rather frightened by the building's history - perhaps the fact that it has so much of it, and so many stories to tell. So many of the staff here are young, and, despite their interest in the so-called heritage sector, have barely spent more than a matter of hours in anything built before 1965. Daisy and I have been known to imagine what it would be like if they had been at Deepdean, with its rock-solid walls, hardest of wooden floors, and coldest and most echoing corridors.

To clarify why Daisy and I did not return to Deepdean in some capacity, as we had once hoped to: the school, sadly, no longer exists. I looked the place up when first writing my will (detective work can be a difficult business, and if I learnt anything at all from my dear Father, it's that paperwork must be done, regardless of its complexity), as I had thought to leave something, perhaps, in its name - maybe the Wong Scholarship for a promising young girl from the Far East who has yet to have the good fortune I had in being sent here, but, alas. The school was repurposed in the 1950s as a community space, and just last year, it was finally bought up. Apparently it will be converted into "luxury" apartments. 

Imagine, I said to Daisy, the yuppies moving in and drinking champagne in a jumped-up version of our old dorm. What would King Henry have said! Daisy rolled her eyes, and then asked, "Do we have any champagne?" Yes, I replied, with a smile, she probably would have said that. But Daisy didn't seem to notice I was making a joke. Never mind, I thought to myself. It was quite funny, all the same.

And so there it is - not much has changed, though we have had such lives. We are volunteers in this place now, have been for over a year. Daisy leads tours sometimes - she has such a flair for the dramatic, although, when I act as the shepherd at the back, I notice that she can be rather factually inaccurate at times. I wouldn't correct her in front of the visitors, but I try to recite the details again in conversation at some later point. Sometimes I think Daisy prefers to rewrite history to suit her liking, but that's not always for her to do when it's not her own actual history. 

We both have our own way with the staff and our fellow volunteers. I like the regularity and the team-like aspect of things - or, I did before Fenella started here, but we'll get to that - and Daisy likes a willing audience, which these always are. I know some of the youngest staff who volunteer because people tell them they must be able to prove that they can work before they are allowed to earn any money enjoy Daisy's outlandish stories, and even more outlandish dress sense, for she never has to pay for a pot of tea or a scone. Occasionally I am tempted to dress up and play myself up more, for it would be nice to have the sense of recognition that she has, but then again, it often pays to be more effectively in the background. Like now, for example. 

Fenella's body was as dramatically-splayed as any I have seen. Her stance was almost cartoonish, which made it, perversely, easier to see. Her mouth was open but she did not, to my ears, at least, scream as she fell. 

There were no discernible marks on her body. I checked, as much as I could without touching or disturbing her, that she was not already dead before she hit the ground. It is not far enough from the roof that she would have suffocated on the way down, although it is a long, long way.

3

It felt like I'd been out here alone for hours, waiting, just Fenella and I. The wind was starting to pick up, and Fenella's ratty brown hair straggles across her face. It's something of a relief to avoid her rigid final expression. 

I did another scan of the house. There were more faces at the second floor windows, in the Long Gallery by this point, the volunteers and visitors amassing. I could see through the open doors I came out of that the front door on the far side of the house had been closed. My walkie-talkie was still on, but no further sound had come from it. 

Something caught my eye up on the roof, perhaps only a bird, or perhaps it was another flash of fluorescent clothing, but it was only a second, no more than that. And then finally, Jill was coming out of the front door and towards me. She was breathing very quickly, and her eyes were wide with a fierce concentration that belied the panic I could see she was feeling. She looked terribly pale - even her bright green hair seemed a more ashen shade in the greyness of the day. 

"Hazel! Hazel, are you okay?"

I knew she wasn't expecting an actual answer to this, because, what kind of person would be okay when confronted with a body lying before them like this? She approached me in a way I can only describe as a mix between clumsily and gingerly, and I could see that she was unsure as to whether she should try to hug me or not. She settled for putting a hand on my shoulder. I could feel, even through my shirt and cardigan, that her hand was ice cold. I wonder whether or not Fenella's would be colder at this point. 

It is not a pleasant thing to wonder, and so I shiver, now as I write this, but also then, as I thought it. It is all very clear in my mind. 

"Would you like to go up to the staff room, Hazel?" Jill asked, seeming to choose her words very carefully. "I think Françoise has the kettle on."

"I don't mind staying with you, if you need...isn't anyone else coming down?" I was keen to see what would happen next, and perhaps to speak to the police when they arrived.

"Would you mind going up to the staff room, Hazel? I think Françoise could use some help making tea for everyone. We're closing early, of course." A little sharper this time. Jill's eyes were a little wider.

"Shouldn't I help escorting the visitors..."

Jill gave me such a look that I knew she was desperate for me to just do as I'd been told. I made a mental note of her tone and behaviour, to turn to actual note here - by this point I had realised that I was going to have to treat this in just the way I have treated all - well, most of - the other murders I have encountered in my life. Tone is usually very important. Jill's is generally warm, a little slower than most, and full of humour and quick wit. She was quite different now. She'll have had training of some sort for this kind of thing, I thought, taking one last look across the scene, and then I wondered what, exactly, this kind of thing was.

I made my way slowly, a little more slowly than I might have, back into the house. 

There was an air of excitement inside. It's the only way of describing the energy that crackles through the air in there. Grand old houses like this, with their wide staircases and great open landings, and many corridors and doors, have strong flows of energy, and sometimes quite peculiar ways with sound. It's one of many reasons people think of older buildings as haunted, for they're used to the flat, sound-absorbing triple-insulated chipboard sandwiches that pass for walls in new builds, and the echoes and reflections of sound and shadow in these creaking all-but-wrecks are disorientating in a way younger people can't quite parse. It's fun to see, and at the same time, I feel for them that they won't get to grow up in the middle of such things, with their nooks and crannies and damp and seasonal scents of coal and mildew. 

There I go again. I must be careful that this account does not descend into nostalgia: the facts are the facts, and they must be properly accounted for. 

Daisy was waiting in the hall. The buzz of what I rightly assumed to be an evacuation through the side entrance of the house is all around us, but as ever, when I saw Daisy, my heart slowed a little, and everything felt a little more in hand. 

"Well?" Daisy asked, in the hushed whisper that could still, I'm sure, be mistaken for a schoolgirl if you simply heard it from around a corner. "What do you make of it?"  
I shook my head in that way that I have long since learnt to do when I mean to agree with an obvious, sorry, train of thought that my conversational partner is on. "Definitely..."

"Murder!" Daisy mouthed this, as much as anything else. "Most horrid," she followed it up with

I nodded, and tried not to smile.

In the staff room, Françoise was making tea with all the lengthy elegance of a French ex-catwalk model. That's what she is, of course, all six foot of her. I feel like the smallest person in the world when I stand next to her, something I try not to do too often. She's kind and vivacious and her scarf collection alone is worth more than every piece of clothing I have ever owned, all put together. She is a little younger than Daisy and I, I know, but she could pass for a good twenty years younger than her actual age, especially if you see her far enough away that you can't tell how deeply the make-up has sunk into her laughter lines. Her posture is remarkable, and she pulled her shoulders back sharply with a strong inhalation as Daisy and I walked into the room. 

"Ah, girls!" she exclaimed, with an accent that seems so exaggerated, but, I know is not in the slightest. Also, she refers to any number of us as 'the girls', even when we are not all female. It's endearing, coming from one so tall, I think, although Daisy occasionally bristles a bit at it. "Iz it true? Can it be so?"

"What have you heard?" Daisy asked, cleverly. Always ready to examine. 

"Oh, zat ze Fenella, she has fallen from up on the roof! What a terrible thing." And then she pushed a cup of very hot, very weak tea into my hand. There was no milk in it, and the teabag was still there, floating around in the hot water forlornly. "Just this morning I was saying to ‘er, we must do some more of the outings like we used to, when zat nice girl Astrid used to ‘elp us out. Everyone together…"

Françoise tailed off, and poured another mug of tea. She went to hand it to Daisy, but Daisy refused it. "I think I need something a little stronger..."

"You will 'ave a brandy? I 'ave some in here..." Françoise dove for her handbag - a Birkin, so I have been told, which is apparently a very special and hard to find type of handbag, but all this means to me is that Françoise means rather more to some people than I had imagined. Or is every bit as wealthy as I had assumed.

Daisy can't help but giggle a bit. "I meant a coffee! Black, please."

"Ah, zat is ze correct way. Look at me, ze French maid!” She laughed, heartily, and did a little unexpected shimmy. “I will get to it." (It is no good - I cannot accurately convey Françoise's throaty accent in typing alone, so I shall stop trying to, but if you could imagine a rich, rasping, low tone filled with all of the confidence and none of the aspirates then I think you'll be close.) Françoise spooned coffee granules into a fresh mug and filled it full of steaming water, undaunted. Daisy accepted this gratefully, and began to drink from it immediately, without even checking whether or not it would burn her mouth.

"So what else did you say to Fenella this morning?" Daisy asked, settling back into one of the threadbare old armchairs that lines the back of the smaller-than-it-needs-to-be room. I couldn’t help but eye up my little old bunkspace, and wish for a moment that I could crawl into it and have a warming nap. It was cold out there, and, whilst I have learnt to be ready to go when my skills are required, sometimes I still feel a little tired at the thought of the work that I know lies before us. Not to mention the potential hoops, hurdles and dangers that might be required. I shoved aside petulant thoughts about how I was just going to get down to a number of things I’d been putting off all year, and refocused on our glamourous companion.

"Oh, it seems so long ago now!" Françoise said, raising her eyes to the heavens as if the memories of it were somehow showing on screen up there. "Let me see...I was talking to Edina on the way here this morning - I saw her on the bus you see, and I haven't seen her for a couple of weeks because you know her husband has been away with his leg, you know, having the surgery on it and then they went to their little holiday home in West Wales, just for a couple of weeks, of course, so that he could get out without having to do too much and -"

Daisy cleared her throat.

"Oh yes, well, anyway, then Satoko came in for her morning meeting with the fabric conservators so she could show them the pictures of that little tiny bug they found, only they had not been called and so were not coming because that was one of those things that is the job of, oh, I forget what they call it but then there is nobody to do that job because they have all left and Satoko told us that this has been happening a lot, and that the things are being eaten, can you imagine, so Edina said about how hard it's been recently for everyone with the staff having so many days off and you know, the deputy manger leaving, what was his name?"

"Gavin," I added, helpfully, relieved to punctuate Françoise’s stream of details. Gavin had only stayed a month. Astrid hadn’t even finished her introductory period. Whistleden has been through a lot of changes, since Fenella joined us, and it’s true, there are a lot of things that even us volunteers know have not been done as a result of it. Perhaps I need to ask Daisy to make a chart with me. But I must continue my account.

"Ah yes, Gavin. Then, after he was leaving, there has been nobody to tell us what is going on. And Edina was saying this morning that this Fenella thinks that we are all idiots and does not want to tell us anything because she is so busy with her managing that she does not have time to manage anything. Then Fenella was coming in - we were standing in the Great Hall you know, and I suppose she had come in from the Office and she looked so cross and upset, all pink in her face, and she said, 'So what exactly would you like me to do about it?' poor thing, you know, she sounded very unhappy to have heard Edina's words just then which she obviously had - you know how loudly she talks, do you remember, that tour she took last week and Fenella had to ask her to pop it down a little bit so that it was not echoing all over the house, and she looked so unhappy and now..."

I looked at Daisy, who, I could tell, thought that she had heard enough. Daisy’s face, of course, remained inscrutable.

"So sad..." Daisy said, leaning forwards, a compassionate look on her face. "You must be ever so upset."

Françoise looked at her. Her eyes widened briefly, as if thinking about whether or not to say what she wanted to say next. 

"I am. It is a terrible thing. But," she said, clearly deciding to say the thing anyway, "it could not have happened to a better person. No?"

Daisy nodded, non-committal, but I could tell that even she was surprised to have heard something so very strong from someone who is not given to saying anything against anyone. And it was at that moment that Françoise, unthinkable as it would have been to me prior to entering that staff room, became the first person on my suspect list.

Suspect List

1\. Françoise Elphinstone

Motive: Disliked Fenella. Opportunity: Influential amongst staff and volunteers alike. Could have a part in a wider plan. Whereabouts at the time of the murder unknown.

2\. Others on the rooftop. 

Motives: Unknown. Opportunity: Present at scene of the fall.

This requires further investigation. Jill was not on the roof but was seen by Hazel Wong in the Housekeeper’s Quarters at the time of the murder. 

3\. ???

With so many staff and volunteers on site - not to mention the visitors, of whom we may only discount tapestry man and coit family - we may have our most expansive cast of suspects yet.


	2. The Foul

1

Sirens in the distance alerted us to the arrival of the police. Gone are the days when Daisy and I know the boys and girls in blue the way we used to, although in some senses, that seems to be a help, rather than a hindrance. I am still reminded of how sticky it could be when the Chief Inspector would come to Deepdean, as with the time when our Head Girl was brutally and tragically despatched with one autumn, and he would know how set we were on solving the mystery ourselves. 

Jill radioed the staff room, and asked if I would come down. I realised that I had, perhaps, been sent up here in some kind of ‘holding pattern’. I hadn’t thought so much about it - everything always happens so fast after an ‘incident’ - but Daisy, of course, ought to have been outside with the rest of the volunteers and visitors on site, and had rather gone her own way. Why was it that Françoise was allowed to stay up in the staff room? Why did it take Jill so long to get out to us, and why hadn’t she been up on the roof? Questions spun around in my mind, and I could do little to answer any of them. It is another of my rules of detective work that I have established over all these years - one must never fuss too much over questions as they come, but simply note them, and let them sit. Daisy has a theory that the mind works even when you are not, and it seems as well as any, for there are a great many revelations that one has in the middle of the night when one was quite definitely not focusing upon them.

The first officer on the scene could not have been less interested in me, as I wait, patiently, to give my account. Just another of those interfering old biddies, I can see practically written across her thin, young, businesslike face. It is rarely pleasant to be underestimated, but at times like this, it can be most useful. The backup policeman that arrived from the town station moments later was wide, soft with middling age, ghostly pale, sniffing horribly, and apparently similarly disinterested. They looked at me with slight pity and asked so little of any consequence that there's no chance that I would have offered them any more information than needs' be. The thing is, sometimes it can be worse to offer up what you know. I've learnt that a few times over. You don't want to give away the type of mind you might have: I have never fully understood why, but people seem to think that you are being confrontational, or that in some way, you're trying to do their job for them. Of course, sometimes both are true. 

Sylvia, the first officer, finally asked me what I saw, and I reported it, such as it was. I left out the details of who, what, where at the windows, and also of my proximity to...the body. There's no need to get that into it - your average old biddy likely would not have noticed. I also skipped my suspicions that there was more to it than a simple slip and fall: my mind was so set up for this to be an investigation that it was quite difficult for me to keep this contained, but I think I did so neatly. It isn’t, of course, that I don’t want the police to be able to do their jobs, and nor is it the case that I think they are incapable of such things, but Whistleden is a shoestring place, hardly crawling with visitors, and the staff that remain here are dear to us. I can’t think of anything worse than being shut down for a lengthy investigation if it can be avoided. And if it can’t - then it’s more obvious than I think it is. 

The other officer, John - everyone seems to be named John again - asks me if I've been offered any support yet, and I don't quite understand what he means, but I haven't, and I wouldn't lie to a direct question, so I explain that I have not. He gives me a very cheap-looking photocopy to fill in, with my contact details. I put them in, but I put the house as my address, and our “work” number, instead of that of our flat. Daisy insisted years ago on having two separate lines, just so we had the choice as to which to give to whom. It’s proved rather useful both personally and, well, we are not professional detectives, but we are perhaps high-end amateurs. Regardless: I will know that the call is most likely them, if it comes. 

"Was she, you know, did you see her in the morning?" Sylvia asked, and it takes me a moment to dismiss the pointless words from her sentence and take the sense of it out. 

"I didn't," I said, which is true.

Sylvia shook her head. "Man, this is a rough one. Windy day, I guess."

I caught my facial expression just in time. 

Iris took a step into our space, and Sylvia touched her on the shoulder. "Do you want to go through the advice line details with me, so that you can put those up on your noticeboard or whatever? For the older ones, you know."

 _I’m right here_ , I wanted to say, but didn't. Older ones, honestly. 

Daisy tells me later that John was very interested in the layout of the house, so she gave him the short tour, and then told him about how the place was rigged for subterfuge and spying, and then she gave him a long history of the place, all the while smiling her best, and he was captivated, she said, of course. She showed him how you can get onto the roof through the servants' staircase, and said he was positively beaming at the sight of the servants' passage. Well, she said, you can't blame him. It's exciting to be able to get a personal tour of such an historic building. 

I try not to assume that he was simply pleased to spend some extra time with Daisy. She may be well in possession of a free bus pass, but she has all the vitality and charm she ever did, if not more. Clearly she had no interest in hiding the type of person that she was. John, perhaps, had a different stereotype to attribute to her before ‘interfering old biddy’. It is, as ever, always a different story for Daisy. 

She said that it was more that she was hoping to find out where they were at with their thoughts on the matter, and also that he would want to take some statements from anyone else they bumped into whilst they were walking around, but the only person they saw, she said, was Doris Martin, our textile conservation consultant, who had been hard at work surveying a wall hanging for the rumoured outbreak of deathwatch beetle (it sounded so appropriate, now) and had only found out what was happening when she surfaced for her customary tea break. "It's lucky there wasn't a fire," Daisy pointed out to me. "Clearly our complete lack of training for emergencies would have led to a great deal of nothing being done to save either us, or the building."

I thought it harsh of her to say so, but it was true that none of our emergency procedures had been followed. She was being sarcastic about the complete lack of training - we'd had countless drills in the last month, since an historic property in the next county along lost half its collection in a fire. If the alarms had only sounded, everyone would have been out in moments, and things would have been a bit more organised. 

"I suppose if it's an accident, then it's not like anyone else is in danger, is it?” I offered.

“And if it’s a murder?”

I swallowed. 

“True.”

2

 

Of course, Whistleden was closed for the rest of the day, so we were sent - I would say, allowed, but of course we wanted to stick around as much as possible to get all the details we could - home more or less straight after the police had taken our statements. 

We drove back in silence - I could tell that Daisy was percolating because she would occasionally mouth things, or straight up suddenly, or tilt her head from side to side in contemplation. If I had not been driving, I would probably have been able to tell you exactly what she was thinking, such is my experience of Daisy Wells, but I was in no rush. I was going over the details myself, organising them sufficiently so that, on our return home, I would be able to jot them down accordingly in preparation for this case file. 

“Did you notice anything unusual today?” I asked Daisy, eventually, after she’d made us some very slapdash cheese and pickle sandwiches for tea.

Daisy shook her head. “If only we’d arrived a little earlier, we would have seen Fenella when Edith and Françoise did. Bother! If only you’d keep your lanyard in the same place each day, we wouldn’t have had to spend all that time looking for it.”

It is a little unfair that my actions have cost us quite as much as this suggests, but again, I must always write down the truth. Our flat, you see, is rather full of the things we have acquired, or been given, or left over the years and, whilst there are some things I find it easy to keep in order (writing materials, books, that sort of thing), my lanyard, I confess, is not amongst them. 

“Funny that it should have been the roof,” Daisy mused. 

“Why so?” I asked. 

“If you really wanted to off somebody at Whistleden, is that how you would do it? Chuck them off the roof?”

“If I was hosting a roof harness workshop, then yes, probably.”

“Good point, Watson-” I coloured a little, for it had been some time since Daisy’s pet name for me came out so easily “-good point. Now, I’ve got the briefing notes from the morning staff meeting. They aren’t particularly useful, but they do show what a mess this place is in. When I think what a good job Bertie does of running Fallingford more or less on his own as a business place, it’s astonishing that they can’t keep things in better order here. There. At Whistleden.”

I smiled. Daisy and I get so caught up in Whistleden sometimes - it can be difficult both to leave the place behind, and to remember that we are not actual employees of it. We have had to do an awful lot there this year, and certainly there are times in my life when I have been paid to do less than I achieve there. 

The mention of Bertie is nice to hear, too. Sometimes I feel Daisy doesn’t give her brother his dues, but he does very well keeping their old family home in one piece, as Daisy says, virtually alone. It’s barely changed since they were little, despite the fact that it was uninhabited for a time, after Daisy’s mother passed away, and the whole place became layered with dust, as well as things. Indeed, our home now is like a miniature version of Fallingford, only our belongings vary from so very much older, to many things that might be considered quite garish. Daisy has ‘phases’ of interest in various artists, and we have acquired a curious selection of pieces both that artists wished to give her, and which Daisy herself wished to own. Unfortunately, those two descriptions rarely collide, so we have quite a selection of work wrapped up in the hall cupboards. They wouldn’t go in Fallingford - and I don’t think Daisy would wish to see them there: it isn’t as if she wishes ill of the place, but she hardly ever wants to visit - and they’re completely wrong for most museums. Perhaps in the future we’ll have our own little museum, somewhere. 

People sometimes think it funny that we still talk about the future, at our age. I say if one doesn’t, what, really, is the point at all?

“We need to find out who else was on that roof,” I offered. “Speak to someone, at least.”

Daisy nodded. 

“Do you think the police will look into this as a murder?” I asked, genuinely unsure from my meeting with the pair of them today. 

Daisy shrugged. “There’ll have been forensics, for sure, before evening. I suppose we’ll find out tomorrow.”

#

We had a telephone call (on the personal line) from Jill the next morning, telling us that Whistleden would be closed over the weekend, but that it would be opening again, if enough volunteers could be found, on Monday, and continuing throughout the week as normal. I asked her how she was, and she said, just a little too quickly, that she was very good. The police, she offered, without prompting, had been very kind, and now it was just a matter of insurance paperwork.

No mention of a criminal investigation. 

“There’ll be an autopsy, I suppose,” Daisy said. 

“Did Fenella have any family?” I asked. It had only just occurred to me that I had never heard her mention such a thing.

“Not that I know of,” said Daisy. She was standing in the middle of her study, hands on hips, frowning at several teetering stacks of books. 

“Hazel, have you ever thought of writing a book about Diana? I’ve an awful lot of information and I just know you’d do a brilliant job of bringing it all together.”

I laughed, inside and out. “Tidy your own things!” 

Daisy sighed. “Worth a try. But honestly, you’d do a wonderful job.”

“That’s true…”

“But not today. I suppose you’ll be writing up The Fenella Files thus far, today, won’t you?”

Of course; here I am. 

3

 

Daisy was making me a suppertime hot chocolate - not a common occurrence, but I’d bought a fancy one from the department store in town on a whim, confronting the sense that it was something I did not need head-on. One of the benefits of the education system we have been through - coupled, I suppose, with the scant availability of any of our favourites during the war years, although I know better than to discuss any possible upsides of such things (something I would often like to remind my peers, but usually bite back) is that treats will always feel like something that is illicit and about to be confiscated from me by matron, or similar, something that is just mine and Daisy's little secret. It is possible that the fact that Daisy and I have spent so much of our lives together that I continue to remember my earlier years as well as I do: sometimes I ask people a third of my age about their time at school and they claim they can hardly remember a thing. I don’t need to do more than close my eyes and taste the scent of floor polish, or feel the crumbiness of a squashed fly biscuit between my fingertips to be right back there. 

Daisy stuck her head around the kitchen door and gave me a look, suggesting that I answer it, and, despite the fact that I was already wrapped up in my dressing gown, whilst Daisy was still quite literally suited and booted, I went and did so. She was, after all, making me hot chocolate, I rationed to myself, as I padded down the hall in leather ballet shoes that I have had resoled a hundred times if I’ve done it once. Occasionally Daisy mocks the very concept of my performing ballet, but I remind her that she was no more likely a candidate than I, and on this, we can both always agree. 

We don't often get visitors - it isn't the largest of flats, and we aren't as given as we were to hosting midnight feasts and the like, not least because Daisy is usually asleep by half past nine and I'm off not long afterwards. Thus it was with some care I opened the door to see Angela, Whistleden’s administrations manager. She was pink of face and looked, to be kind, very, very tired. 

"Angela? What are you doing...here?"

"I'm so sorry. I got your address off the volunteers' contact sheet. I...I just...I...can I come in?"

Angela is another of our young ones, maybe twenty-seven, but surely not yet thirty years old. She was still dressed in her work uniform of a smart-casual Aertex shirt and heavily pocketed dark trousers, and was carrying her work bag on her shoulder. 

"Please?" she said, and I realised I was just standing there, staring at her. 

I beckon her in, and give Daisy a forced look to attempt to engage her as we walk past the kitchen door. She's shaking, I noticed, as I put a hand on her shoulder to guide her into the living room, and towards my armchair. 

"Do you want some water?" I asked, because she looked so faint, I found myself genuinely wondering if she would make it through the next few minutes without passing out. 

"Do you have...anything stronger?" she asked. 

"This is about Fenella, isn't it?" I said, a little more loudly, in the hope of catching Daisy’s attention. I couldn't imagine what else it could be, but I needed not to be the only one present.

Angela nodded, quickly, and then looked around like she thought someone might be watching her even now, in our flat. I noticed that, however bad things were, they were not bad enough to prevent her from doing the double take that everybody does on first sight of our overbearing decor.

"Is everything...” I started, but realised that the poor girl clearly needed a moment. “Never mind. I'll get you something to drink. Please - sit down."

#

"Angela." Daisy said, when I went into the kitchen. "In our house?" 

"She seems really unhappy."

"I guess it's been a rough time for everyone."

"You go and talk to her."

"Me? I'm making hot chocolate!"

Daisy was indeed diligently stirring a pleasingly steaming pan. I saw very little reason to wait any longer. 

"Please, Daisy. She needs...we need to know what she knows, and she’s terribly upset. For the Detective Society, remember?"

There are moments where the years fall away. Daisy's glint in the eye told me all I needed to know about how she understood where I was coming from. Visiting a volunteer in their own home was not just, as I understood it, unprecedented, it was also slightly illegal. Clearly, something unusual was going on, and it had come right to our very home.

"Okay," Daisy said, as if she couldn’t believe she’d ever hesitated, and had instead been graciously allowing me the perks of the situation. “Come in in a minute. Don't forget your drink."

I poured steaming chocolate into a mug, and stood in the kitchen for a moment. I leant back against the kitchen table - huge, and excellent for spreading out everything you want to look at all at once - and took a moment to think through what I wanted to know from Angela. One of my best detective tips - perhaps I will include a list of them at the end of this case, for there are still so few resources to help the would-be Detective Society work things through - is to know what, at any given time, you think you need to know. There is nothing worse than seeing a key witness walk out of the door and then remembering that you meant to ask them what time they saw the suspect, or what colour the missing handbag was.

I would need to check Angela's position in at the house, her duties, and how long she had been doing them. Her relationship with Fenella, and what specifically about today's events had made her cry. Who else she had spoken to, and who else she thought that we should perhaps speak to. Above all - what she thought had happened to Fenella on that fateful morning. 

I remembered only then that I had promised to bring something for Angela, too, and grabbed the brandy from the medicine cupboard. Daisy and I have been fairly fortunate amongst our peers in health terms, and Daisy puts this down to a regular post-dinner brandy, on her account. For myself, I can only point to my father’s long life and say that it must be in my fortunate genes. Actually, I suppose I ought to point more to my mother, for neither of my half-sisters survived their sixties - heart trouble and a nasty case of pneumonia respectively meant that I never did make good on my intentions to know them better. When I think of the way I thought my life would turn out…I am rarely surprised that I find myself here, and, even if I am surprised that Daisy has stuck with me for all this time, I have come to think, now, that it is a comfort I have earnt.

My mind wanders more easily, now, and my sense of time is not what it was either, so it was with a touch of hope that I had not kept them waiting longer than was necessary. 

“Angela says she thinks it was murder,” Daisy said, looking at me with the most innocent expression you can imagine, as if she just couldn’t believe her ears.

I added my impression of surprise, which was not so difficult, given that I hadn’t quite expected Angela to come straight out with it - shocked people so rarely tell you what you actually need to know straight away - and handed her her brandy. She gulped it, gracelessly, and made the most peculiar noise. 

Daisy politely ignored her, and continued, “Apparently Fenella was behaving most strangely on the rooftop.”

“On the rooftop?”

“Indeed. Angela was there.”

Perfect.


	3. The Findings

1

 

As Angela told it - through three brandies and taking so long that it was well past my bedtime by the time she’d finished, and late enough that we called her a cab to take her back home to Whistleden, rather than letting her hope for the last bus which operates on the sort of rural wish-and-a-prayer schedule that is least useful when you most require it - Fenella insisted on going first in the practical demonstration, and, having been roped up by Angela herself correctly, with everything checked and fastened just so, she launched herself rather vigorously off the roof and, as she tried to gain her footing, her safety ropes simply snapped, and that was that. 

“You don’t think,” Daisy said, “that we’ve been a little presumptuous here?”

I was surprised to hear this from Daisy, of all people, for she is usually suspicious of some greater plot if someone so much as moves a paperclip. 

“What do you mean?” I asked, a little nervous. 

We were tucked up in bed with the list on a clipboard I’ve had since I don’t know when. We do have a computer, and I enjoy it very much, for it allows me to type without covering my hands in ink, or getting halfway through a case but to the end of the notebook I’ve started it in (my least favourite), and Daisy is only interested in the computer when she uses the Internet on it, usually to exchange theoretical e-mails about one aspect or another of Diana Vickers’ work, so my files stay just where I’ve put them, and Daisy cannot be bothered to double-check things. 

“Well, what if she did just fall?”

“People don’t just fall. They really don’t. Not like this. The way Angela described it, nothing broke, but nothing seemed to be wrong with the harness, and when they examined it, all they could say was that it had come loose. It sounds like Fenella was in such a rush she didn’t fasten it properly.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” Daisy says. “But we both know better, don’t we?”

“I thought so.”

“Well, why do we think we know better? We’ll have to do better than just, ‘intuition’, Watson. That just doesn’t cut it in the notes.”

“Because everyone who works at Whistleden, including us, assumed, immediately, that it was the case.”

“You don’t think we’ve all been watching too much Poirot?”

“I’m surprised that you, of all dedicated AC-fans, could construct that sentence, much less utter it out loud.”

“True, true.” Daisy contorted herself and grabbed another blanket from the stack at the foot of the bed. Daisy can never have too many blankets. I like a cold room to sleep in, so we compromise by Daisy having all the blankets she pleases, and my having the window a little open. Even in the depths of winter, the fresh air still tastes too good to leave outside. “However, do you think we might all be engaging in a little wish-fulfillment?”

“Nobody wishes for murder. Daisy! Come on.”

Daisy shrugged. “Then we need to come up with some proof, if we’re going to get any closer to solving this one.”

“Wait. Angela said something…what was it?”

“When?”

“When she was talking about when Jill went around to her flat, the night it happened. What was it?”

“Oh, wait a minute.” With a sigh, Daisy heaved the blankets off her, and tumbled herself out of the bed. 

“Where are you going?”

“I can’t remember what she said, but I do remember that that won’t be a problem!”

I closed my eyes for a moment, because sleepiness was catching up with me, and when I opened them, it appeared that Angela was right there with us. It took a second or two to realise that it was Daisy, brandishing the dictaphone I bought her for Christmas, oh, 1986? ‘88? Anyway - I hadn’t seen it in a while. 

“When did you…” I start, but Daisy shushes me. 

Angela was quite difficult to understand in person, but the tape seems to edit out a little of the slurring, somehow, possibly because it was so creaky it cancelled it out.

“She asked me if I would be going for the job,” Angela said, with all manner of hesitations and stutters that I won’t add to this account for purposes of clarity. “And she said that she was, and that I shouldn’t be upset if she got it.”

“Would you be upset?” Daisy asked, kindly.

“Yes,” Angela had sniffed. “But I told her…what Whistleden needs is the best person for the job. And that if that was her, then that was fine, and I would do everything I could to support her. And she said that was just as well, because she couldn’t have stood it if anyone else had got in her way. She said it quite straight, and then stood up and left. Abruptly. And I remembered when I asked her when I moved into the flat, you know, after Astrid left, what she wanted to do, and she said that she was just so frustrated, before, this was before, and she said that she felt like she would never get anywhere with Fenella in charge.”

There was a long pause. I looked at Daisy. 

“She obviously hadn’t finished,” Daisy said, as if my brain needed jogging. 

“The thing was…” Angela said. “The thing that makes me think…something…that Jill had something to do with all this…”

“What?”

“She came to my back door, from the servants’ staircase side. The staircase runs the whole height of the house, from basement to roof. But Jill’s flat - where she should have been - is opposite my front door. I think she must have done something out there.”

Right after completing that sentence, Angela-on-tape dissolved into tears again. 

“It isn’t evidence,” Daisy said, “but it’s certainly a lead.”

2

"It's the ghosts," Ian said, with bold conviction.

"I...er...what?" I said, uncomfortable with the way he'd pulled me aside so unexpectedly. 

"You know, the ghost on the top step? Second floor."

"Ah...yes. The ghost. The servant girl."

Ian Banks is Whistleden's most irritating volunteer, to my mind. He's very wealthy, took early retirement from the sort of city job that makes him think he’s the most important person to walk amongst us mere mortals. He’s very tiresome, and considers himself extremely well-informed about everything to do with the place. As he isn't an actual employee, he's not bound by some of the caveats of employment that the staff are, and he dines out on this as often as possible, often turning up only for shifts he feels like doing, and making most merry with his comments about our visitors, ranging from the rather rude, to the downright cruel.

He runs the half-term ghost tours, and loves recounting the story of the servant who fell down the Great Stairs and died, back during Diana Villiers' residence. The top step, he says, if you linger too long there, you'll feel a pressure on your chest and if you're not careful, if you don't brace yourself, you'll be next. Diana, he says, threw her down the stairs for not bringing her the correct drinks. Daisy hates this line of thinking and even as we were speaking with him I had to position myself in front of Daisy, take a step forward and move myself next to Ian to encourage him to walk with me, so that Daisy wouldn't give him, yet again, her corrections and thoughts on what actually happened. 'Save it for the book', I keep telling her, but she just rolls her eyes every time I say that and I know that mostly what she wants to do is rub Ian's nose in it and point out that he isn't the authority he claims to be. 

"It's just the same, you see," Ian said, as we walked down the Long Gallery together. 

"What is?"

“What’s happening. Just the same as back then. You see, that Diana, she was bad news, too. Lots of unexplained things back then. High staff turnover. She travelled a lot, for a woman. Very suspicious. And they say she ran this place by herself! Can you imagine? It’s just the same!”

I may have forgotten to mention: Ian is disgustingly, unabashedly sexist. Fortunately, he chooses to spend his time in what must be one of the only female-dominated industries in all of Great Britain, and so he is consistently surrounded by women who are more knowledgeable and more interesting than he is. It must be difficult, in a certain sense, although in another, I would prefer it if I never had to encounter him at all. Still, as I said, he deals with the child-based tours most of us would rather avoid, and he does a fine job of them, and, as before, with things being as short-staffed as they are, there are many things we have to put up with, just to keep the place in one piece. Ian is one of them. 

“You put a woman in charge of all this, and is it any wonder the thing falls apart! She couldn’t even stand on her own two feet, and she single-handedly drove away staff who’ve been here for years! Terrible.”

“I hardly think that’s anything to do with her gender,” I snipped, and Ian’s nasty, smug face pinched in disappointment. “This house thrived under her ownership, and Diana did wonders for the scope of the collection, never mind her lifelong service to Queen and Country, the vital importance of which is still being uncovered. Speaking, as we were, of women in charge. Now. Why don’t you tell me a little more about these ghosts you’re so fond of?”

Ian’s face took on a beetroot hue in a matter of moments. I felt successful. Daisy is best with people who are having emotive crises, it’s true, but I have long-established a skill for dealing with those who lack in common courtesy and humanity, and another of my favourite things about my old age is that, when I do choose to pick a verbal battle, I have complete confidence in myself to fight it to the bitter end. 

Daisy trailed behind us, as Ian wittered on about the possibilities of the realm beyond, and I could feel her biting her tongue as surely as if it were my own. It has taken a great many years for her to trust that sometimes I am the best person for the job, but the satisfaction of knowing that we can finally capitalise on our lifelong relationship by taking it in turns to pull forwards is greatly reassuring to me. I had assumed that, at some point, I would simply relax into my existence and our friendship, into being the Hazel Wong who knows who she is and what her purpose is, but I find myself always a little on edge, even now. Even with, as some of our contemporaries say, the best years behind us, I wonder if any of my accomplishments are sufficient, or, indeed, if sufficiency was ever a goal at all. For me, survival of myself and my home, wherever that may be, my duty to my work; all these things are always equally important. 

I take pride in everything I have done where I can, but there is something about the work that Daisy and I have accomplished together, so often unsung, something about the relationship we have formed, which is, just as our work so often has been, certainly outwardly unspoken, that is, I come to realise, my most important role. I’m so grateful to Whistleden for having given us a place that makes the most of both of us - indeed, if there is anything to be said for the ghosts, and there’s certainly something, for no old place that’s held as much life as this can be completely bare of left-behind influence, even if it’s only in the depths of the walls themselves, it’s that the place always seems to know just what we need, and when we need it. From accepting me in, when I was in need of a cosy place to call home, when I didn’t know if Daisy would ever be more than a distant memory, to right now, when the Detective Society cannot help but ride again.

The answerphone was flashing when we returned home, and I didn’t hesitate to press the button. Answerphone messages are a boon to me - like a personal secretary, with none of the management hassle.  


“Daisy! Satoko. Perhaps we could meet? It’s been a while, and I would really like to talk to you. What a difficult week we’ve had. Tomorrow, in the cafe? 3pm? I’ll be there - no need to return my call. I look forward to it!”  


Technically, I don’t usually work on Tuesdays (volunteer. I don’t know why I keep clarifying, but there it is) but we’ve so many unanswered questions, and likely so many unasked ones, too, it sounds like a most tempting offer. After Ian’s concerns about the ghosts, it would be nice to speak to someone slightly more…grounded.

 

Suspect List

1. ~~Françoise Elphinstone~~

 ~~Motive: Disliked Fenella. Opportunity: Influential amongst staff and volunteers alike. Could have a part in a wider plan. Whereabouts at the time of the murder unknown.~~ Notes: According to Angela, Françoise was coming out of the bathroom as they were coming down from the roof, and she was genuinely shocked and insisted on going to put the kettle on. Angela says she was not thinking about procedure, and nor was anyone else present: tea simply seemed a great idea. Whilst her attitude seemed strange, we would be pleased to be able to rule her out.

2\. Others on the rooftop:

2a. Angela Foreman - Administration Manager, Keyholder.  
Motives: Unknown. Opportunity: Present at scene of the fall. Notes: Appears unlikely, as she is genuinely upset and volunteered a lot of information to us.

2b. Jill Svensson - House Steward, Keyholder.  
Motives: Wanted Fenella out of the way to advance her own career. Opportunity: Access to the roof the night before the incident. Knowledge of the training session, content, equipment, and Fenella herself. Notes: Jill was not on the roof at the time of the incident, but was seen by Hazel Wong in the Housekeeper’s Quarters at the time of the murder. Handed over the training session to Angela, without explanation, at the last moment. Suspicious behaviour all around. It would be best to speak to Jill in person, if possible. Seems the most likely suspect at this time.

3\. ~~Visitors.~~

Angela is certain visitors could not have played a part in this, as nobody came up the stairs after the doors opened, and, she thinks, there are more than enough suspects amongst the staff. She claims to have double-checked the visitor books from recent days and has noticed nothing unusual. She is positive that this is an ‘inside job’ and, although she cannot give us any hard evidence, nor can she demonstrate a method, believes that it was Jill. For the sake of directing our energies in the most likely direction, we will accept her assumption for the time being.

4\. The Ghosts of Whistleden Hall.  
Motive: Full awareness of the whole, sorry mess. Opportunity: Difficult to judge, owing to non-corporeality and unknown ability to interfere with the solid world. Notes: At this point, it might as well be the ghosts as anyone.

I’m tempted to add Ian Banks to this list, but feel he would be a waste of investigative energy as he shows no signs of hiding anything, and, despite his unpleasant attitude towards Fenella, demonstrates nothing but rank cowardice and incompetence in all but his most specific skill set.


	4. The Fear

1

 

Satoko is about ten years younger than I am, but her hair is much greyer. Visitors to Whistleden often tell me delightedly that they’ve just been speaking to my sister in the next room along, or they ask me with excited curiosity whether or not I have a twin, and I have perfected my thin, patient smile and delicate silence that, I always hope, says everything that would be in the lecture I would like to give about the fact that Satoko is from Japan, and I am from Hong Kong, and that those are two vastly different things, and that also, neither of us look like anything like each other. Even after all these years, white British people still cannot tell the difference between two very different humans of the broadest dissimilarity. I understand to an extent - I have often struggled with white American men with brown hair worn in just that way that they so often have it, but I feel that the difference between myself and the white British is that I would never imply that all such American men are related to one another. Looking back through our Detective Society notebooks from our younger days - and I have them all, back to that very first year at Fallingford - the thing that makes me almost as sad as the tragic body count we have been witness to is that, despite the great social changes in England in all my time here, the minutiae of my gripes has changed so little. 

These casenotes were never intended to provide social record, but it is true that all such crimes are influenced by the privileges and gripes of their time, and I must say that I am rather impressed with my young self and the level of detail I have managed to give about where we were at such radically different - and radically similar - times in the twentieth and 21st century. 

But to Satoko. She took me aside, as she occasionally does, when she wishes to gripe in whispers, lips pinched angrily, about one or other of our co-acquaintances, and asked if I would have tea with her in the cafe. We bonded early on over a love of the bunbreak, and a fondness for the scones in Whistleden’s marvellous little cafe, and I often spend an afternoon chatting with her there. Satoko has very little time for many of our fellow volunteers, for she has a doctorate in historical textiles and thinks that most of us are just making up most of what we say to visitors. She quite likes me, I think, for I am nothing if not thorough, and I make it a point never to tell any stories for the sake of it.

Satoko is tall and slim and always dresses in shades of grey. She looks like a 1960’s photographer to me - hopelessly smooth and chic with never a hair out of place. I feel rather bunchy next to her, but I am used to that feeling, which has accompanied me whenever I am beside Daisy for the majority of our time together.  
“It’s just…” she said, and hesitates, biting her tongue quite literally, before tailing off. I was chewing wholeheartedly on a warm scone with butter and blackcurrant jam, so was not paying proper attention, which is not my usual style - I am a very attentive listener, I have been told many times - and clearly Satoko wanted my full capacity. 

“I wouldn’t say anything, but because it’s Daisy, and because you…two…I mean, I would have gone to the police if it was anyone else…but…as we’re friends…”

My ears had pricked up at the mention of ‘Daisy’ as they, regrettably sometimes, always have done, and I swallowed my happy mouthful and put the remainder of the scone back on the plate. I looked Satoko in the eyes, and she held my gaze with a certain sense of knowing fear. I have often enjoyed Satoko’s flair for the dramatic, but I was at that point quite ready to hear what she had to say. A funny prickling feeling was making itself known in my palms, and that is the sort of sensation that only usually happens during important moments.

“Daisy what?” I asked, rather rudely, I felt, even as the words were coming out of my mouth. “People are saying it was deliberate, you know, what happened with Fenella.”

I nodded. People certainly were saying it; it would be foolish to pretend not to have heard anything, especially as Daisy and I had been in every day since it happened. 

“Well, you know.” Satoko said, fixing her stare quite intently.

I shook my head. Was I being deliberately slow? I didn’t think so. I honestly didn’t know what she was getting at. 

“Daisy. She’s…you’ve said before, she’s quite a mysterious woman.”

I must have looked confused, because Satoko huffed a little and sat back in her chair. 

“That she’s very capable? That you don’t know everything about her.”

I suppose I probably have said those things of Daisy, for they are all absolutely true. There have been times where it maddens me that there are gaps in our lives which we haven’t closed, but at the same time, both Daisy and I thrive on mystery. I know that she enjoys trying to fit together some of the spaces in her knowledge dearly, for sometimes she will fire a theory at me, like, ‘Hazel. In 1963 did you travel to Denver, Colorado?’ I simply say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ accordingly, and leave it at that. Sometimes the world is so far from us, and so unconcerned with our continued existence that working out each other can feel like all we have left. Or, I suppose that’s what it is. Daisy would never say so. 

“Yes?” I said, a little hopelessly. “What of it?”

Satoko did a you know face, and I still don’t know. 

“After that tour. With the regional manager.”

“Which tour? Daisy hasn’t done a tour in a while…”

Satoko was obviously processing something there, because her next expression was one of realisation. Oh.

It was only at that point that I had a realisation of my own. 

“You think it was Daisy!” 

My exclamation was just a little too loud, and Gerald, the sullen teenage boy employed to make bad coffee to go alongside the excellent scones, gave me a look of disdain I didn’t think a child of his age was capable of giving towards the face of one so much older than he, but there it was. I felt as chastised as ever I might, but also that my cheeks were burning with a surge of complex feelings.

“It’s just that…” Satoko said again. “After the tour…”

As she’d already said those words, I thought I might burst with annoyance. A detective should always be patient and I was one of the best with that attribute, but, it seemed, there were limits, and as ever, one of those limits was Daisy. 

“Please explain to me,” I said, with a calm control I mustered with every fibre of my insides, “what it is that happened on this tour that makes you think Daisy might be responsible for…what happened.” Ever the euphemism. I have long since learnt that it is best to always be coy and never casual with the term ‘murder’ when dealing with the public. 

“It wasn’t on the tour,” Satoko said, matching my tone firmly. “It was afterwards. She took us aside, and she told Daisy that she was very grateful for everything she’d done for Fallingford but that she would prefer to prioritise some of the other guides from now on. She explained herself, too. Right there in front of me. She said to Daisy that the tour was embarrassing, and that she didn’t want the hall shown in that way. ‘It’s not Disneyland, Daisy’, she said, all the while with that nasty smile on her face.”  


I had to work very hard to keep from protesting, because I could not imagine why Fenella would say such a thing. At the same time, she was known for comments that were not exactly kind, nor necessarily based on facts. Daisy can be a little dramatic, I’m sure I’ve said as much even in this update, but the visitors love her for it. She’s charmed all sorts of people, from royalty to schoolchildren, with her enthusiasm for Fallingford, and even Satoko cannot deny that Daisy knows her stuff when it comes to this place.

“What happened next?” I asked, which is always the best thing to ask someone when you need to prompt them forwards. 

“Fenella put her hand on my shoulder - it was very uncomfortable, she always stands far too close to people as well…stood far too close to people… - and told me that my bit in the Villiers suite, about the carpets, you know, collected as they were from -”

I have to push Satoko through this part for she finds it very difficult not to get caught up in materials of any kind, and I have read the folders about such things myself already. 

“Yes, anyway. She said my bit was very good and that perhaps I would consider leading a tour the week afterwards. Of course, that one was cancelled as it was with the bank, you know, those ones who wanted the private opening and then the drinks and -”

It is ever so tiring when you just want to get the basic facts out of the way and move on from the conversation. 

“What did Daisy do?” I interrupt. 

“She said,” Satoko said, drama increasing in direct proportion to the lowering tone of her voice, “that she was going to kill Fenella Cooper.”

My demeanour obviously suggested that I was not expecting this.

“Daisy says a lot of things,” was my first, not particularly helpful response. 

“But you would not deny that it is a direct threat?”

“I…Daisy wouldn’t. You see, Daisy is…” But I couldn’t blow her cover. Nor could I tell her any of the things I did know about Daisy. Not really. Not completely. Not sufficiently. And of course I immediately started to wonder. 

Could Daisy? 

“She didn’t tell you about what happened with Fenella, did she? The tour?”

I shook my head. 

“So…she obviously wanted to hide some things from you.”

I nodded, feeling like something of an automaton by this point. 

“I know that she is terribly important to you, Hazel, but this is ever so serious. We must get things sorted out as quickly as possible here, and we cannot risk Daisy taking any…further action. You do understand what I mean to do?”

“You’re not…going to try to kill Daisy in return, are you?”

Something akin to genuine fear appeared to pass over Satoko’s eyes, as if she were bothered by the very concept of it.

“I…no. No! No, I mean only that I must tell the police.”

“Then why would you tell me first?”

“I was worried. In case you might be next. You see, in case you were in danger from her too.”

“Did Daisy tell you she was going to kill me too?”

“No, I just…I’ve read these things before. Where there is a first, there is often a second. And Whistleden is so precious - we must not lose any more of the expertise that keeps this place on its feet.”

In the background, Gerald began to clean the coffee machine, and the loud jets of steam made me realise with a jolt the severity of what Satoko was saying. 

2.

Not Daisy, was all that went around my head. Not Daisy.  


It couldn’t have been.  


Not over a little thing like that. People have said all sorts of things to Daisy, in our time, and she is nothing like the sort of vengeful person who would do anything about them. Much less would she act over a little thing like that.  


Some people are a little frightened of her from time to time, it’s true, but that’s only because they don’t know her like I do, and they don’t know that she really wouldn’t hurt a fly.  


Still.  


I could feel my mind whirring, just as it does every time a new suspect is introduced to the case. As much as I wanted to shut it off, I couldn’t make it stop.  


I drove the long way home from Whistleden, glad Daisy was not with me. She would have known what I was thinking in just that most annoying way, at the most inopportune time.  


How would you feel if she had? one half of my brain asked the other.  


The question is invalid, I instructed the other half to respond.  


The internal argument continued.  


I put the radio on, as I drove, and turned the dial until some most uncharacteristic (for my car) thumping music came out of the speakers. I turned the volume up until I was no longer able to concentrate on the unresolvable thoughts, whilst making my way home. 

#

I managed to get through dinner (a very acceptable spaghetti bolognese that Daisy had obviously spent half the afternoon constructing) without attracting attention, mostly, I think, because Daisy wanted to recount to me the details of the bolognese and others she had eaten when she was in Italy. I wish I had been able to pay a little more attention, for I do enjoy a good food anecdote, whenever and wherever it occurs. After dinner, I told Daisy I was going for a long bath and an early night, and she nodded, cheerfully, and told me she’d just found a new lead on Diana’s trip to Sweden in the 1860s, and this at least absolved me of the guilt of avoiding Daisy for the evening. 

I did not sleep, however, not for anything. I lay there, tossing and turning, and at one point Daisy thwacked me with a pillow, and when I said the inevitable oopmh, she asked me, very sweetly, if I was having a nightmare. I was, but not the sort I could wake up from. 

“I’m fine,” I said, and turned over again. I decided to start at the beginning, run through it all - a reconstruction, if you will - and find a way to be able to strike Daisy off the subject list myself, so that I wouldn’t have to worry any further.  


I didn’t know whether Satoko would actually make good on her threat of going to the police. She had always seemed to me like someone who is rather fuller of talk than they are of action - she is usually far too busy with her constant attentions to the fabrics of Whistleden to dedicate any more time than necessary to other things, but there it is. 

If she did, though…if she did, I was worried the police would take her far more seriously than they might Daisy or I.  


Around and around I went - what could I do, what should I do, how could I entertain such thoughts for a moment, and ought I to have handled the situation differently? I am so rarely so thrown, these days, and the rustiness of my aptitude was as frustrating as anything else.

In my mind, I retreated to that little bunkspace. I have often done that, over the years. I was perhaps at my most tired, then, and also at my most functional. For a multitude of reasons, that little space held me as well as any I’ve ever known. It was a simple time, with no Daisy, no distractions, no outside life. Simply the work, and the occasional nap. And quite a lot of buns. We lived mostly on buns. 

My tired mind slipped into a feverish place that is half-awake, half-delirious, and so began a torrent of imaginations of Daisy, imprisoned, and the work I would need to do to free her. It was unproductive and did nothing to fix any of the issues that had been concerning me since the moment Satoko explained herself to me.

In the morning, I slipped away bright and early, unresolved, leaving a note for Daisy telling her I would bring back some fresh rolls for breakfast. Occasionally I will do this sort of thing, when I decide that I’m going to have a, well, not exactly a fitness craze, but at least a daily morning walk. I rarely manage it for more than a week at a time, but I always feel better for it when I go. 

The little area our old building is in is quite heavily wooded, rural enough that it doesn’t have any pavements, and you have to walk carefully on the right side of the road not, I think, so much to protect yourself from oncoming traffic, as they say, but more to prevent keen locals and angry drivers from telling you you are doing it wrong. I have long-since learnt to do just as everyone else does things. 

On this particular January morning, it was cold, but far from frosty. I don’t remember the last time I saw snow in England in the winter, but I miss it dearly. I would give a lot for the crisp crunch of fresh fall underfoot. Certainly, it might make me a little better at sticking to my long walks. Of course, it makes many crimes far easier to solve, too, when there are tracks involved. 

The trouble was, I decided, we hadn’t followed any of our old detective rules. We hadn’t been able to inspect the roof, nor had we found a single shred of evidence that this was, in fact, a murder, bar everyone and their dog telling us it was the case. 

We would have to stage a reconstruction. And if there was the slightest chance that Daisy really was involved - the fact that she had yet to suggest such a thing, when usually she would be the first to be after it had occurred to me - then it would soon become apparent. 

A spring picked up in my step, and I greeted the man who runs the bakery with such enthusiasm that he actually laughed. “Here you go, Miss Hazel,” he said, handing over four fresh white rolls. I both do and don’t enjoy having my marital status form part of my address - my feelings in the long run tend to cancel each other out, so, yet again, I never say anything about myself.

When I returned home, brandishing the rolls fairly cheerfully, I was quite stopped in my tracks as I found Daisy waiting for me at the kitchen table, a stern look on her face. 

“Hazel Wong,” she said, “Please explain yourself.”

3

 

Suspect List (cont.)

Name: Daisy Wells - Whistleden Hall Volunteer. President of the Detective Society.  
Motive: Angry with Fenella after being publicly belittled. Opportunity: Movements prior to the murder unknown, but seen by Hazel Wong at the time of it.  
Notes: Daisy.

I had written ‘Daisy’ underneath, four or five times for good measure. 

Daisy looked from the paper, to me, to the paper again. I had quite forgotten scribbling it down last night in the bathroom, hoping that, by putting it in the familiar format, something about it would make itself apparent, and I would know myself to be completely wrong. This had not worked.

“Where did you-” I started, but Daisy held up a hand. 

“Wrong answer!” she said. “Let’s try ‘Hey Daisy, this is my thought experiment about how you could actually, secretly, after all these years, be a murderer.’”

As so frustratingly occasionally occurs, I was lost for a way to answer this. “I bought breakfast,” I said, instead, holding up the bag. 

Daisy tucked her hair behind her ears, then reached out her hands for it, took a roll, and, as I knew she would, tore it into small pieces, deftly. “Let’s start,” she said, “at ‘publicly belittled’.”

“Ah. Well, really, I was hoping you were going to tell me about that.”

“But really, what are you talking about, my dear?”

“Satoko said that on one of the tours you did -”

Recognition spread across Daisy’s face. “Oh, bloody hell.” She went a little pink. “That.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Honestly, I truly had forgotten about it. Or…I didn’t want to think about it. Come on Hazel, you know what I’m like. Fenella was a nasty piece of work, I’m not going to deny it, but I’m a much better person than she could ever hope to be and if she thought for one moment she could get the better of me with something so lame as to put limits on my unpaid efforts for Whistleden, she should’ve thought all over again. That’s just not how I work. You know that. Of all people, Hazel, you know that. I suppose I didn’t say anything because I wouldn’t ever want you to doubt it.”

“I didn’t…” I said, but I could barely get the words out for feeling so bad.

“I’m sort of flattered. But you should know, Hazel, that my interest in murder is purely theoretical. And anyway, you really shouldn’t pay so much attention to Satoko. She hates me because se doesn’t like Diana, and she won’t do a thing to help me in my studies. I mean, really. When you look at everything that woman achieved, and she’s got a grudge against celebrating and uncovering her memory just because she stuck the stupid tapestries in storage. I ask you! It’s not like she sold them off, like the McDonalds did the silverware and most of the books.”

I nodded. The way English stately homes sold off everything from books to silverware to pay their debts and taxes in the 1920s-1930s is nothing short of a crying shame. It reminds me of the time we spent in Oxford, and the magnificent bookshops there, stacked high with books that simply looked normal: old and dusty. If only I had understood, then, that they were the desperate fire sales of a hundred grand old houses like this, I would have bought so many of them, and perhaps, in my ripe old age, I could have given them back to the homes that had 

“Even if she has said anything to the police, they’re not treating it as a criminal case. I’m sure they’d just pass it off as a crank.”

“Satoko is many things, but she’s not a crank.”

“She is if she thinks I would’ve had Fenella fall off the roof like that. I would’ve been much more subtle…”

The earlier echo of Daisy’s Would you really chuck them off the roof? comes back to me, and it seemed instantly silly that I ever would have thought anything else of her.

“So, do you think you could cross me off the list? It’s only fair to make a proper assessment. We can’t just flout Detective Society rules for the sake of ease.”

I was about to agree freely, when I realise that, apart from knowledge of Daisy and her behaviour, I still don’t have any concrete evidence either way. Of course, the fact that we still don’t have any real evidence of the murder having taken place could technically negate the need to follow it through, but I’ve never been one for just pushing on through on a technicality.

“Will you answer a couple of questions regarding the day of the alleged murder?” I ask, adopting my best investigative tone.

“If you’ll have something to eat and sit down, I will,” Daisy offered, looking pleased at the opportunity to practice a role-play. 

~~Suspect List (cont.)~~

~~Name: Daisy Wells - Whistleden Hall Volunteer. President of the Detective Society.~~  
Motive: Angry with Fenella after being publicly belittled. Opportunity: Movements prior to the murder unknown, but seen by Hazel Wong at the time of it.  
Notes: Daisy. Impossible. Daisy was in the Library, taking advantage of the quiet start to the day to handle the few remaining books of Diana’s in the light by the window. The photographs she took on her digital camera are timestamped, from mere minutes after I last saw her, to just before the scene of the crime. Hazel Wong is content to conclude that she could not have been involved in the alleged murder of Fenella Cooper.

4

"We can't just reconstruct this," I protested, but I should have known that Daisy would have had a plan.  


""They never finished the harness testing," Daisy continued, as if I'd never said anything. "So they'll have to do another session soon. Why don't we...put ourselves forward?"  


"I looked down at my hands and flexed them. Five joints cracked, audibly.  


""They'll never let us. The insurance, for starters. Besides, I think you have to be staff for that sort of thing. Plus, even with Fenella here, it took them ages to get the session booked in and organised. They have to do all sorts of paperwork for it. We’d have to wait weeks!"  


"Daisy rolled her eyes. "Honestly, Watson, where's your spirit gone?"  


""Oh, my spirit is perfectly fine. It’s just, I think we can find a better way to get up there and investigate this very day, don't you?"  


"Daisy smiled, and a flush of warmth spread through me.  


""I'm all ears," she said, one faint eyebrow arched in curiosity.

#

One of the greatest issues with Whistleden during Fenella's reign was the lack of contact with elsewhere. And after her murder, without even her to provide answers to our questions, however made-up, it was difficult to feel that we were anything other than all at sea. Iris was busy simply keeping the boat afloat, and the need to maintain cashflow and keep the place going meant that there was no choice but to open every day. With the shortfall (Daisy would like me to add that this is a very good pun, but I think that is a little crass, plus it overlooks the fact that it really is a very long way from roof to floor) in staff, it meant that, on the plus side for the Detective Society, all available volunteers were asked to help as much as possible. Daisy and I were nothing if not available, and therefore nobody was surprised to see us turn up on Friday morning, uninvited. Presumably Iris, Jill and Angela each thought that the other had called and asked for our help. 

It was very much like some form of trickery we would have played as children, except that the strings required then were for no more amusing purpose than they are now - we were, it seemed, perpetually in service to truth and justice.

“Are you here for the early shift?” asked Iris, as we were on our way up. “I’ll just add your names to the list…”

“That’s okay,” Daisy said, coolly. “We’ve got a meeting with Angela. Upstairs. About…what we can do. You know. With everything. We’ll let you know as soon as we’re done though - we don’t have anything else on this afternoon.”

“I thought Angela was off today?” Iris said, with a frown. “She called me this morning and said she wasn’t feeling too good, and asked if we could swap. I’m not supposed to be on until tomorrow, you know, but then again, the last time Angela swapped shifts with someone…you know what happened…”

“Exactly!” Daisy said, and I was grateful that her lightbulb moment didn’t usually translate. “The thing is, we’ve a lot of experience with…helping people, with this sort of thing, you see. Hazel and I. I think Angela needs something of a shoulder to cry on, and it’s the least we can do. I know you’re rather short. Thank you for helping her out today - it’s really very kind of you.”

“I…er…yes,” Iris said. And fortunately for us all, at that moment, Satoko, Edith and Françoise arrived, and made such a fuss of Iris that it was easy for us to make our excuses. Satoko gave me a strong look as they arrived, and I held my breath for the first few moments, but she shook her head slightly, and, taking this with all the best hope I could, we left the scene.

We knocked on Angela’s door quietly, and she answered immediately.

“Thank you for coming,” she said, as she welcomed us in. It was quite something to be inside the top apartments - they were, of course, once various rooms in the house, and are just as historic and interesting as everywhere else, but necessity means that staff must have somewhere to live, and the only outbuilding at Whistleden is the cafe, which inhabits the old stables. Just as Angela had taken a moment to adjust to our decor, so we do to hers. It is rather impressive, and there are paintings and bits of furniture we both recognise as likely having belonged to the collection. 

So it was that Daisy and I were, after a little customary sweet-talking, and some more genuinely caring for Angela, who seemed truly distraught that this apparent ‘accident’ had happened under her watch. I was certain that she had had nothing to do with this, and the keenness with which she sent us up to the roof was verging on desperation. 

I'd only once been on top of Whistleden's roof, on the aptly-named rooftop tour. It didn't last long - one of the visitors suffered from vertigo and was most unwell in the Drawing Room. It was agreed by all that we should cease to offer something so stressful. So, it was wonderful to be back, and we could not have chosen a better day to be there. The view was spectacular, in the sense that there was a lot of it, and it also showed how far we were from most things. Sometimes people talk about this country being crowded, or getting ever more crowded, but I see views like this and see only vast, rolling fields, some farmed, some wooded, some full of sheep, horses or cattle. It’s true that London has grown no end since we were young, and certainly journeys that could be easily walked in an hour or across near-countryside would now take ages to negotiate the streets that have been created, and recreated since that time. But, out here, progress is muted, and the space is all there is to see.

“Let’s get a move on,” Daisy said, bringing me back. The winds were high up here, although I hadn’t noticed a breeze at all down on the ground. It was easy to see how someone could be distracted whilst doing something. 

The space was oblong in shape, and puckered with chimneys, vents and drains. “Can you imagine the time the Cambridge climbers would’ve had up here?” I asked, recalling the secret climbing societies we had discovered when a Christmas holiday had turned into a case, back when it had just begun to seem like cases were all around. 

Daisy peeked over the edge. “Was it about here?” she asked, rather ignoring my question. “If she landed there, then…” she did some finger-waving in the air, as if drawing an equation. “It must’ve been. Yes?” 

“I think so.” It was hard to be sure from this angle. I looked back. “So they would be anchored here…” I said, pointing to a metal contraption fixed to the roof. I gave it a sharp shove, and it did absolutely nothing but bruise my forearm. “The rope goes through here, I think? And then they clip it. It’s a long time since I saw anything like this.”

“We must ask Angela if we can see the equipment. But that would make sense. So…Fenella was here…and…ah! Look!”

Daisy was pointing to the outside of the brickwork. I joined her, and then had to come back for a second, as the sudden change in depth perception rather rushed up to greet me and made me feel momentarily quite unwell. 

“Come on Watson! Pull yourself together.”

Such comments don’t usually help, but from Daisy, they can be all I need to find my focus. I took a deep breath and leant back over. Daisy was pointing at a series of marks on the outside of the wall. 

“She would have climbed up here, and then you can see, look, she stepped off there, and then there’s the slip marks, in the moss, do you see?”

A slight covering of green lay on this sheltered corner of the stonework, and there, indeed, was an unmistakable scuff.

“She didn’t even have time to put her other foot down. So the harness went instantly.”

“Could it be a mistake? Just not fastened properly?”

“Angela swears she checked everything and it was all in good order. And the workshop keeps them all properly maintained and organised. They’re about the only department here that haven’t had anyone leave recently, so I’m sure that was all up to date. There’ll be records in the emergency storecupboard - I’ve seen them kept when I’ve taken the Behind the Curtain tours. Don’t suppose I’ll be doing any of them any time soon…” Daisy breathed a heavy sigh.

“There doesn’t seem to be much else up here…” I said. “As far as reenactments go, I don’t think we can get much closer than we are.”

Daisy nodded, face twisting this way and that in contemplation. Daisy doesn’t so much have wrinkles, as a contemplation across her face. She has so many expressions that her dimples have refined themselves into describing lines, which can be read almost as well as handwriting. “Let’s just…” she said, and she crouched down, slowly, with a couple of effort-based sounds. 

I realised what she was doing, and joined her at ground level, hoping beyond hope that nobody else would come up whilst we were doing this. What kind of alibi could we possibly give? Rooftop stretch classes? It could be a great new direction for Whistleden…that wouldn’t ever sound appropriate, would it? I pushed my wandering mind back to the task at hand. The cold of the lead rooftop was already through my tights and skirt and numbing my knees. My eyes weren’t co-operating fully, so I took a moment to refocus. I followed the direction of the wind, where it curled stray leaves into a corner, and went that way, my fingers trailing across the ground. The smallest details so often mean the most.

The damp meant that the swirl of detritus ended in a sticky slant across one corner. I took a deep breath and dipped my fingers through it. Leaves, some mud (how mud happens at this height I don’t entirely understand, but it does), a couple of small stones. I picked up the stones and put them in one of the plastic food bags I always keep in my pocket - you never know when you’ll need to carry something interesting but damp around with you, nor when you might want to stash some very tasty food from, say, an unexpected plate of cake or buffet - and stood up, brushing myself off.

“Come on, Daisy. I don’t think we’ll find anything else here.”

“Wait wait! I’ve got something! Is it…is it a hair?” She pulled at something I couldn’t see. “No! I think it’s just a thread. Stuck on this grille, here.” 

I held out the bag with the stones in. “Shove it in here; we can take a look at home.”

“Is there anything else you two would like to see? Do you think I’m going mad? Can you see how…can you see anything wrong?”

Dear Angela. It reminded me as ever that there are many victims to these situations.

“Do you think we could take a look at the harnesses you were using? That would really help.”

Angela showed us to the emergency cupboard where everything was stored. She talked us through what was needed and how it went together, and, whilst she didn’t have Fenella’s exact harness - that would need to come back from the coroner - she showed us one just like it. “You fit and adjust it here,” she said, “and the buckles and safety clips attach like this. I remember I made extra certain Fenella’s excess was safely clipped - she was surprisingly small around the middle, I thought to myself, and her strap was quite long, so I remember well what was happening and that’s how I know that I had checked it and double-checked, and there just couldn’t have been anything wrong…”

She began to cry again. 

“Shall we go back up?” Daisy said, taking her firmly by the arm in a way that made certain it was not at all a question. She gave me a look that said, Just have another check yourself, won’t you? “I’ll meet you downstairs, Hazel.”

I said my goodbyes to Angela, who sniffled a few more words, and went back to the cupboard. 

5

 

“Hazel? Hazel, is that you?”

Jill’s voice. 

“Are you okay? What are you doing up here? Are you signed in?”

So many questions - I pretended to be a little more baffled than I was.

“I’m sorry,” she retreated, when my confused look seemed effective.

“If there’s something you need up here, you can always just ask me. This cupboard is super important - you oughtn’t really to be here on your own. Nobody should be. Especially not right now.”

“How are things, Jill?” I asked, trying to turn the situation around. 

“How do you think?” she said, rather quickly, and then she put her hand to her head. The green of her hair was significantly duller than it had been a week ago. “I’m sorry,” she said again. “I’ve not had a good time. To be honest, I just don’t know what to do.”

Honestly, I thought to myself, just when I could use backup again, and Daisy’s off elsewhere. 

“Do you need to talk?” I asked, quite unsure. 

Jill looked around quickly. 

“I’m supposed to be covering the Ladies’ Drawing Room whilst Michael has his tea break, but it isn’t as if we’re packed. Oh, it isn’t as if anyone is here at all, really. Sometimes I wish the police had decided to investigate us further - that way at least we might have had some press. Oh, but what a terrible thing that is to say! Please understand, that’s really not how I’m feeling about it. That isn’t who I am. It’s just…it’s been a…you know.”

“Tough week?” I offered. 

Jill smiled, weakly. 

“Shall we have a quick cup of tea and a biscuit? I’ve got some bourbons in my flat. One of the few plus points to living on site - there’s always a biscuit just a few steps away!”

“I’m supposed to be meeting Daisy in a minute,” I said, and then could’ve kicked myself because I was talking myself out of an apparent opportunity to talk to our prime suspect. “But I can never refuse a biscuit!” That, at least, is certainly true. I don’t eat as much as I used to but a biscuit here and there does wonders to keep my strength up. 

Jill’s apartment was much less interesting on the inside than Angela’s, which surprised me. “Just the servants’ quarters,” she said. “I’ve got a door through to the Housekeeper’s Quarters, which is handy when I need to make a work call, but annoying when they’re having a meeting about something on my day off. I can hear every word through there. And that’s been pretty unpleasant this year, I can tell you.”

“How so?” I ask, sitting down on one of the two cheap-looking plastic chairs that provide all the furniture I can see in the whitewashed, waiting-room style living room. 

“It’s really not much, is it?” Jill said. “And to think, I’ve been here all this time. I just…haven’t ever really felt at home. Which is why…”

I hold my breath, wondering if the confession was coming out, just like that.

“I didn’t want to tell anyone, but it’s been eating away at me, and I really don’t know what to do. I know you and Daisy have…a lot of experience in the world, and you just, well. I’ve always trusted you, Hazel.”

“What is it?” I encourage. The chair is extremely uncomfortable. I assume Jill spends most of her time here in bed - I can see a little bedroom through the open door on the opposite side of the room. There are clothes all over the floor in there, and the bed is an unmade mattress on the floor. It looks lived-in…but not happily.

“The reason I wasn’t at the training session…the reason I couldn’t tell anyone I wouldn’t be there…I was doing a telephone interview for a new job.”

Oh. My mind rattled with thoughts waiting to join up, but I forced it to keep listening. 

“At Fallingford House - I don’t know if you’ve heard of it?”

“I…er…well…yes. Yes, I have. What job?” I couldn’t help but ask. Right after Daisy had been saying about Bertie doing so well, and all. He’d love Jill, though, there was no doubt about that. Bertie always enjoyed people who weren’t afraid to stand out.

“It’s run by this old bloke who wants someone to help with filming contracts - you know how I’ve been wanting to do more of that here, and Fenella just wouldn’t…ever sign off on them, said they weren’t good for our image, but…I know I could’ve made it work. Would’ve been better than having to bother all of you all the time for visitors who only seem to make everyone angrier, anyway. And with all the work that needs doing to look after what we have - we really should close up for a couple of months and have everything seen to. I just don’t seem to be able to get that across to her. Didn’t seem able to. Oh, I don’t know what’s wrong with me - I can’t seem to say anything quite right today! I’m all at sixes and sevens. The thing is - he told me then and there that he’d love to offer me the job. And I said yes. And just as I did so - right then, exactly as if my word had made it so - Fenella…fell. I felt so guilty - I…just the night before, I’d been up on the roof myself. And I thought about how hard it would be to get anywhere here with Fenella in charge - she never liked me, you know, but then she never seemed to like any of us - and then I went and tried to talk to Angela about it and she seemed so sad when I said that, and I tried to reassure her that I would never want to take away from her career too and - oh, it just goes around and around in my head, Hazel. Thank you so much for listening. I’m sorry, it’s just…all so much to take in at the moment.”

“I see.” I said, and tried to look reassuring, whilst really wanting to know all about how Bertie was doing, but also to take a look at my suspect list and update it. “Look, it’s okay. It’ll be okay, Jill. It’s not your fault. Do you…have that biscuit?”

Jill laughed, more a release from having got it out, than from humour. “Of course. I’ll put the kettle on, too.”


	5. The Finale

“Hazel! I thought you were never coming. I’ve been waiting for you for ages!”

I was quite out of breath - the servants’ staircase is narrow and steep and requires quite the navigating, especially when the Hall is closed and you’re only using the emergency lights. The Stewards are used to it, but it’s not the sort of thing I’ve done in a long time. 

“Daisy! It wasn’t Jill. Definitely not. I can’t - ooof - go into details, but I have everything noted down and it all stacks up. You won’t believe it, but she’s going to work for Bertie!”

Daisy peered at me through the globs of moonlight, making their way through the overhanging trees.

“My Bertie? Squinty?”

“Yes!”

“Well that’s just…well. Tell me more later. In the meantime - it definitely wasn’t Angela either. I know we were quite set on that already, but, without any other suspects it would be tempting to shift back to her, and there’s just no way. She’s been so open, and I can’t see how anyone could…honestly, Daisy, I think she’s simply really quite traumatised by it all. She’s worried about what it’ll mean for her career, and, well. The woman _died_. We can’t blame Angela for being anxious about it, but I don’t believe she’d ever consider murder, and, if she did, she would be far too clever to do it under her own watch.”

I was shaking with the cold, but the night was quiet and this felt as secluded as anywhere. Jill’s story had had me so caught up, I couldn’t hold onto it for a moment longer, and now, I realised, we had crossed off everyone on our suspect list.

I relayed this to Daisy. 

“Except the ghosts.”

We were quiet for a moment.

“You don’t think…”

“No, Hazel, I don’t think it was the ghosts.”

“Do you think we should leave this? Is there really anything we can do to help?”

“Who haven’t we thought of? Iris?”

“We know it wasn’t her - I saw her right away on the ground floor.”

“Of course. I’m just not used to this complete lack of…I really think perhaps, we’ve nothing to solve here.” 

“We’ll have another look over it when we get home,” I said. My heart was absolutely pounding, and I was beginning to feel quite faint with hunger. A bourbon biscuit is no substitute for a good dinner, and it was getting late.

As I put my hand on the car door handle, a voice called out in the darkness. 

“Stop!”

“Who’s there?” Daisy called out. “Is it another sodding visitor, stuck in here after ignoring the closing times again? I’ll give them a piece of my mind…”

But I already had an idea who it might be. Well. Either them or the ghosts.

"Satoko!" Daisy said, with significant surprise. "What are you doing out here so late?"

"I was waiting for you," Satoko offered, coolly. "Hazel knows why."

In the distance, I was sure I could hear a siren echoing. This is unusual, remote as we are. I hoped with all my heart that it was not on its way to us. In the pause Satoko had left for drama, the sirens turned off the main road and started up the hill towards us.

It was. There were the flashing blue lights. The hill was steep and winding, but in a matter of moments, Daisy would have some very serious explaining to do.

“They’re coming for you, Daisy,” Satoko continued. “I’ve told them everything. I told them what you did and how you did it. They know, now. And you will be gone, too. And soon, soon, with the rot out, we will be able to treasure Whistleden just as we should always have done.

Daisy looked completely and utterly lost. Romantic as it may be, moonlight rarely does anybody’s face any favours, and she truly looked as if she might fall down faint. 

_Think, Hazel, think._

Something was nagging at me. 

The sirens stopped, but the flashing lights continued. Two cars pulled into the visitor car park outside.

“The gates will be locked,” Daisy mumbled, but she hardly seemed with it at all. “Shall I go and let them in?”

_Think!_

Then it hit me.

 

The thread made sense. 

It all made sense. 

 

"You see," Satoko continued, “how I could not let Fenella keep doing what she was doing to this place."

"To which place?" I echoed, genuinely curious. 

"Whistleden. To the tapestries. The flooring. The carpets. Oh, the carpets. The woman had no respect for them. All those infernal visitors, and the real treasures - we should be centred around them, not the ridiculous stories of the harpy whose gallivanting she prizes so highly."

Daisy turned to me and raised an eyebrow, as if this was making roughly as much sense to her as it was to me. I took a moment to take stock of what I knew about the situation and about Satoko, and then realised. 

_She had no respect for the carpets._

“You stitched,” I said, “the harness.”

Satoko looked at me, unblinking. Everything about her face said, _how could you_?

“You had access to the workshop and the emergency cupboard because you were helping Doris out with the deathwatch beetle work and that’s where they keep the chemicals for treating the infected areas with and you stitched two harnesses together so that it looked perfectly safe, but as soon as Fenella put her weight on the thing, it simply gave. And you…you tried to frame Daisy.”

“She is expendable too. Far too interested in that awful Diana. Do you know what she did with the -”

Satoko’s voice was lower than usual, and oh, it was all I could do to stop myself from going for her. I have rarely, in my life, wished to hurt another human being before now. Even to write this I feel rather ashamed, and I’m sure that Daisy would have been able to excuse herself out of any accusations by virtue of the fact of not having done them…but even I might have fallen for her words, and it is, perhaps, that as much as anything else that boils my blood. 

 

It was John, and Sylvia, and in this situation it seemed utterly inappropriate that we should know them by their first names. Now, they looked only like strong instruments of the law, and that was more frightening than anything had been to me in quite some time. 

“Daisy Wells?” John said, his voice very loud, and very determined. 

“Yes?” said Daisy, and not only would butter not have melted, it wouldn’t have thawed. 

“Please,” I said, “can we do this inside?”

“We need to have a word with you.”

“Wait!” I said, realising that if we didn’t get this straight very quickly, we might not have the chance to do so at all, or at least not until formalities were involved. “Wait! I have something. I have something you need to see.”

But I didn’t get as far as showing them the thread in my pocket, and how it would match, I knew, the conservation thread used to repair the beetle damage Satoko was so distressed by, and I was absolutely sure, too, that there would be, if examined, tiny needle holes at the ends of the harness webbing - perhaps not even holes so much as spaces where the fibres had been pushed aside just the width of a needle.

“It’s okay. I have something too,” Daisy said, and her pocket clicked, and whirred. Sylvia started, as if worried Daisy had something dangerous in there, and was about to throw herself at Daisy when Satoko’s voice emerged. 

“ _…I could not let Fenella…_ ”

Oh clever, clever Daisy!

The dictaphone. 

“Elementary, my dear Hazel,” she said, and I could have kissed her right then and there in front of everyone.

It was, I thought, I hoped, an unusual arrest for the local police. “Tell Doris I found another beetle! Third quadrant from the left! I killed it, but it will have left its nasty marks!” she yelled, as she was led away. We watched, silently, as Satoko was placed in the back of the police car, and she watched us, watching her.

"There is," she had shouted, as she was led away, "no end to what I will do for this place!"

"I think she'll haunt it and bite anyone that tries to touch the tapestries with her ghost teeth," Daisy said, and I did not mean to laugh, but did so, and had to work to turn it into something closer to a sob. 

"I think we'll all haunt this place," I said, when my composure had returned, and the car had driven away. Maybe, just maybe, that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

~THREE WEEKS LATER~

"Fenella Cooper was a difficult person to know," Iris said, as she stood atop the library steps, head and shoulders above the mass of staff and volunteers of Whistleden. "She taught me a lot of things about how...not to run this place. Or any place. I wish things had ended differently, but I will not forget the lessons she taught me. She will, in her own way, go down as a part of Whistleden's long and varied history. I hope that the Whistleden of the future can become a place we can all be proud of, again, and that all the many residents of this building, past and present, would be proud to have been a part of. We are all a part of this place. All of us. I look forward to sharing its future with you all." She took a moment to press her fingertips to her face, and took a deep breath, as if that had been a difficult speech to make. 

“I could not be more proud to be the new Manager for Whistleden Hall. Inside and out, it means the world to me. Angela Foreman will continue as Steward, although she will be working on a part-time basis from February onwards as she will be studying for her PhD. at the same time. We are also thrilled to confirm that the third member of our team, Jill Svensson, will be working part-time too, leading the way in a new role designed to increase our participation both in film and television. We’ll be partnering up with another, quite different property not too far from here, and it’s an exciting opportunity for all of us. And yes, that means we’ll be closed more, and there should be a lot more film stars around! Of course, we’ll need volunteers to ensure that they don’t take their coffee cups into the Long Gallery, or trip on the Great Staircase, so your services will all be needed just as much as ever-” there was already an excited murmur spreading around the amassed volunteers “- and we’ll have plenty of space for you all!” 

“If I could just have your attention for one moment longer,” Iris said, smiling warmly, and scanning the crowd. "I'd like to say a huge 'thank-you' to Hazel Wong and Daisy Wells," she added, looking directly down at us and grinning. I felt Daisy inhale smartly, grow about half a foot, and saw the grin of recognition spread across her face. Daisy has grown to appreciate public recognition more than I had expected her to, considering that it is such things that make maintaining one's stance as a detective a little more complicated than it might otherwise be. I suppose it is that she has done so many things in life that none of us know about; it is nice, sometimes, to have the idea that others know just how competent and accomplished one can be, if called upon, or even, indeed, if not.

"Without them, none of us would be here, and Whistleden might well have closed for good. But we're not here to talk about the past. I want everyone to know something."

Daisy reached over and squeezed my hand. She was looking the building up and down, as I had only a matter of weeks ago, looking for the suspect. But she was smiling, not alert. 

"Good old place," she whispered to me. Or to the building itself. Then she turned and looked at me, her free hand tucking a stray strand of hair back in place. "Good old detective society!"

I squeezed her hand back. 

"Detective society forever!" I whispered, not quite as quietly as I meant to, and three people turned around and Iris gave me a look. I bit my lip, amused.

However old we may be, I will always delight in the way that it seems that Daisy and I will forever be, in our minds, schoolgirls full of wisdom beyond our years, with so many mysteries yet to solve.

THE END.


End file.
